


they don't terrify the rough ones

by mythpoetry



Series: Samifer Love Week 2016 [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, M/M, Sam Winchester's undying love for dogs in every possible world, brief allusions to The Inferno, hellhounds are puppies and i love them, time fluidity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 06:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7672969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythpoetry/pseuds/mythpoetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regardless of the universe, there are two constants: Sam, and sympathy for the devil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they don't terrify the rough ones

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Samifer Love Week 2016  
> July 27th prompt: Boyking Sam

In Lucifer’s presence, all Sam knows is light. The shine and thick of it. The glare and glow. It lay over his skin like jewels. He bathes in its incandescence.

Time is strange in hell. Or rather, time _isn’t,_ at all. Everything happens at once, over and over again, spinning in a flat circle. Temporal fabric stretches like taffy, gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. When Sam was a child, he used to play with it, burned holes in the shimmering sheaves of what annoyed him, glued yards together in white Mobius strips, stitched himself and his loved ones into the velvet of epic battles, prehistory, feats of great magic. One such alteration read _me and Meg and Juliet_ and it was delicately, carefully embroidered in green and blood red gutstring over hell’s hand in King Arthur’s plot. Lucifer had never removed it, even though it meant the heir to the throne, a trusted demonic lieutenant, and a hellhound disappeared every so often, at the whim of time, outside of influence. Sam always came back smiling. The adjustment in time’s silk stayed.

Sam doesn’t need to sleep, not really, but he likes to. Dreaming in hell is almost as good as exercising the right of his empowered blood while above; in dreamtime, this close to Lucifer, Sam can do anything. He creates whole worlds of light that he crushes before he wakes. He once built a rollercoaster of screaming and shadowsteel for the hellhounds, which were really just dogs, after all. Sam loves dogs. Meg thought it was funny.

Time is _strange_ in hell. Some days Sam would swear on his own blood that his lessons last centuries, unfurling endlessly before him. Do this, mind that. It’s necessary, but it doesn’t always captivate him. On his own time he runs his sigil-bound algorithms through the computer he snuck back last time he was topside. His subroutine collects data from whatever strange electrocurrent runs through hell, sparking in the distance, heavy with power. Meg helped him set it up. There’s a lot of political upheaval recorded, scrolling reams of archaic orders coded and digitized. Some of it dull, some of it very, very interesting. All of it absolutely forbidden. If Lucifer found it he’d probably be annoyed but then, he can’t blame Sam for being disobedient. Not when his throne was built on the concept.

Sam knows even among hell’s other residents he is _strange._ His laptop in front of him beeps out an odd song of runes, as if in agreement. He’s an in-between thing, a creature with one foot planted solidly in two worlds. His physicality is odd to him, in hell, where so many are beings of sound and light and catastrophe and shadow. It sets him apart even further. He doesn’t mind, necessarily. Flesh is weak, flesh is corrupt, and Sam is flesh, blood, bone, gristle, but: _Lucifer chose him._ None of that matters, because Lucifer _chose_ him.

“Lost in thought?”

Sam smiles. “No. I know exactly where I’m going.”

“Cute,” Meg replies. “Well, then. Move your ass.” She goes to leave and then pauses. “And put that damn thing away. You’re going to get me flayed.”

Sam obediently shuts his odd beast of a laptop and follows Meg down a winding, darkly glowing path, like a backlit river.

About halfway down, Meg assesses Sam critically. “How old are you today?” she asks carefully.

Sam shrugs. “Somewhere around ‘appropriately aged adult’.”

Meg stops and stares at him for a very long time. “Probably actually somewhere around nineteen. Good enough.” She starts walking again.

Sam has never and will never understand the fuss made of his stupid age. It’s  _hell._ The very idea of tiptoeing around a human concept strikes him as ridiculous. They come to the end of the trail and Sam clenches his fist impatiently.

Meg waits just long enough for Sam to start getting frustrated before smirking and saying, “Go on, then, _Boy_ King.”

“ _Sam._ ”

Sam runs the rest of the way to where Lucifer is imprisoned, a block of shapeshifting ice engulfing him in shimmering spires. It would seem beautiful, if he didn’t know its purpose. “ _Hêlêl_ ,” Sam says. “How are you?”

“Insolent,” Lucifer says, and smiles.

“Does it hurt?”

Sam asks this every time. The answer is always the same.

“Yes,” Lucifer says. When Sam flinches, he continues, “I told you I would never lie to you.”

“I know,” Sam says. “I know.” The current manifestation of the Cage is certainly more beautiful than its predecessors (an intricate web of lightning bolts, a straightjacket of roseless thorns, a mirrored box, a gag made of silver code, a net of iron chains, endless endless _endless_ ) but of course beauty wouldn’t mitigate the agony. Sam feels like a moron for saying anything.

“How are your studies?”

“Fine, _dad_ _._ ”

“Sam -" Lucifer says warningly.

“Sorry. They’re fine. Everything’s fine. I’m flying through it all.”

“That’s what concerns me.” Lucifer tilts his head. “I heard about your computer. Or what’s posing in physical frequency as a computer, anyway.”

Sam winces. “How did you find out?”

“Sam. Regardless of how undignified this punishment may be, I am still a being of light. I can pluck whatever particle I like out of the air and read it easily. What, _exactly_ , are you doing with the current hell generates with its activity?”

“Um,” Sam says. “Reading it?”

Nothing in Lucifer’s face changes but he still somehow looks murderous. _“_ _Pardon?_ _”_

“I. I translated it into code, then made a program to run the code through image-detecting using sigils and. Read it.”

“Sam,” Lucifer says exasperatedly.

“I know. I know you’re angry but how am I supposed to get you _out_ of here if I’m being kept in the dark all the time? I need all the information, Lucifer, _every_ seal, _every_ name, instead of just - random scraps thrown my way whenever Meg feels like -"

“That has nothing to do with it. Your job is notto free me, Sam. Your job is to perform your duties to the best of your ability and be ready for me when I need you.”

Sam resists the urge to cross his arms but only just barely. He was older yesterday. The regression is strange. “Well, sorry that I couldn’t be _obedient_.”

Lucifer stares for the longest time and then _laughs_ , so bright and vicious and gleeful that for one beaming, hopeful second Sam thinks maybe the ice will crack and the Cage will open and they’ll all be free, all of them. It doesn’t, of course, but: he wants to remember Lucifer’s smile, remember him shining and holy.

“I guess I can’t be too angry about that,” Lucifer finally says, then breaks off into near hysterical laughter again. “Oh, Sam. Sometimes I think you’re the only thing _he_ did right.”

“The tyrant.”

“Yes. The tyrant.” Lucifer nods toward the blacklight path, back to darkness. “What do you think this is? All of this?”

Talking to Lucifer isn’t like talking to Meg or anyone else. It’s all consuming, more a pattern of thought change than actual words. Sam gets enveloped by images and light and the long leash of Lucifer’s affection and decodes them later, forms them into something coherent and solid. Over the years he’s perfected the skill. He’s so good it’s like he can hear Lucifer in himself at all moments, ringing out in utter clarity. Questions like these throw him. He’s not sure if this is a test.

“A kingdom,” he says finally.

Slowly Lucifer shakes his head. “This isn’t a kingdom,” he says. “It’s a prison. Kingdoms you’re allowed to get out of.”

“Are you?” It seems to Sam like kingship is just another kind of prison. It’s been a concern of his.

“Sam. I would never trap you. I would never keep you against your will.”

“That’s - not it.” Sam laughs. “It’s really not anything to do with you. What I’ve read lately - a lot of it has to do with destiny or fate or something entirely outside of control for -”

“Sam. Look at me.”

He does. Lucifer continues, “I am here in agony, enslaved to a concept I despise. Every moment is torment. My only relief is your visits, which I can’t prolong for fear of harming you.” He smiles slowly. “The one hope of escape I have is you, your assistance, your flesh and blood. Otherwise I’ll suffer until the tyrant decides to unclench his fist and show me mercy. Which will never come, since mercy is only for the weak.

But _Sam_. I would give up all of it. I would stay bound forever, if. If you asked me to. If you wanted to be free of this.” Lucifer smiles. “If you said no.”

“I say _yes,”_ Sam snarls, and throws himself on the Cage, feels the ice pierce his too-human flesh, watches his blood stain the bland expanse of white, Lucifer’s skin, his own. Like roses. Sam clutches greedily at every part of the devil he can hold and slowly, gently, presses his mouth to Lucifer’s. “ _Fiat justitia ruat caelum_ ,” he whispers.

Lucifer kisses him roughly. When they pull away, both of their mouths are bloody. _“_ _Fiat justitia, et pereat mundus,”_ Lucifer says, and _smiles._


End file.
